I know this isn’t the “done thing” in Ireland but I’m not paying for my bridesmaids hair and makeup. Thankfully they’re all really understanding and they say “sure we’d be paying for it ourselves if it was any other wedding” so I’d say I saved about €250 there.

We’re also not have a car, a friend with a new Audi will drive us (in place of a gift of course). And we’re not going on honeymoon until 2 months after so some of the gift money can pay for the honeymoon.

And, I got my dress second hand, exact same dress I fell in love with in the shop, I saved €1700 there!!

I gave up trying to save and my wedding was very low budget compared to most. I got a loan from the Credit Union and paid a lot of it back the week after the wedding with the cash gifts we got.

When I say my wedding was low-budget, here’s the main things I saved on:

Dress – off the rack for €900

Veil – online for €10!

Shoes – flat sandals that I got on sale for €10

Underwear – just wore my own usual stuff because I didn’t need a bra with the style of my dress

Flowers – bought them at the market in Dublin and my mother was able to arrange the bouquets: I didn’t have a church ceremony so didn’t have to decorate same (or pay any of the usual church fees obviously)

Car – didn’t have any, a friend drove us to the hotel in his nice car and because we got married there, we didn’t have any more travelling to do once I arrived

Hotel – I chose the crowd-pleasing cheaper options like turkey & ham etc, as well as cutting back on the amount of food: I took out the soup course because I feel like there’s always far too much food at a wedding and I personally am full to the gills after soup, not to mind trying to fit a full dinner and dessert in afterwards

Day after entertainment was a gift (instead of cash)

Basically I chose what was important to me about the day, which was the photographs & video, and the music. We can’t have it all, I would have loved to have given everyone the best meal of their lives but we just couldn’t afford it and I decided that the craic was more important, so I was happy to spend on the band & DJ and then for myself, the photographer.

You just have to prioritise what’s important to you, I personally don’t notice the little touches that a lot of brides add to wedding days, like favours or decor etc, so I chose not to bother spending on those kinds of things.